Can I measure your crutch?
by anthropomorphychan
Summary: If there is one thing that Neji likes besides training and getting stronger, it’s order and routine. However, today has something else in store for him." A new student enters the door ... there goes order and routine, out the window.


**I had sugar when I wrote this. Apologies. To be precise, a slice of chocolate cake, 3 Timtam biscuits, 4 small sqaures of Whittakers Creamy milk caramel, 3 small slices of this really nice almond slice, a glass of raro (artificial drink with lots of sugar) and two scoops of cookies and cream ice cream. Result. This.**

**Um ... I rated it T since ... I'm not sure if it's alright to be ranked as a K or K+**

**Please read and review!**

**anthropomorphichybrid**

**Can I measure your crutch?**

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**Summary: "If there is one thing that Neji likes besides training and getting stronger, it's order and routine. However, today has something else in store for him." A new student enters the door ... there goes order and routine, out the window.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto**

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**Can I measure your crutch?  
**_anthropomorphichybrid_

Stretching. That was always how he began his morning. He begins with static stretching exercises. Standing still, feet just slightly wider than shoulder width apart, arms stretched in front of him in parallel lines, he carefully brought his arms out, turning them until they were almost parallel behind his back. Then, he interlocked his fingers, pushing them forward until he felt the stretch between his shoulder blades. He continued his upper body stretches and then moved onto the lower body stretches. He stretched his calf muscles, his hamstrings and his thighs.

Afterwards he proceeds with the Iliotibial Band stretch. Sitting tall on the floor with his legs stretched in front of him, parallel with each other and with the floor, he slowly bends his knee and brings his right foot, right next to his left knee. He then turns to his right, using his left arm and right knee to help push his body further. When he finally feels the stretch along his spine and the muscles around his right hip he reverts back to his original position and then begins the stretch using the other leg this time.

Moving on from that, he does some joint stretches starting with his fingers, wrists, elbows and all the way to his ankles, feet and toes. This is then followed by some neck rotation, shoulder circles and arm swings. Squats and lunges follow this before he finally finishes it off with meditation.

For a young 10 year old, Neji Hyuga sure is systematic in everything he does.

He showers. Gets himself dressed. Fixes his appearance. Eats breakfast. And then he walks to school.

If there is one thing that Neji likes besides training and getting stronger, it's order and routine. However, today has something else in store for him.

When he gets to school, usually, there's nobody there yet except for the cleaners. He sits down on his chair, the chair he's chosen to sit on since the beginning of the year, the one right next to the window, only two seats behind the teacher's desk, and then glances out the window. Immaculately dressed, with a sculpted nose, perfectly lined eyebrows, cold, hard eyes and lips, melded together in an impassive expression, he could be mistaken for a statue. And to be perfectly honest, there had been times earlier this year when birds had mistaken him for one and used him as a nesting place. Tried to anyway.

Like always, just 10 minutes before class starts, the room would start to fill up with a bunch of familiar faces. People, he's been with since they were 5. Five minutes later, a lad with bushy brows appeared. 15 seconds later, he was picked on by the class bully and his minions.

Neji rolled his eyes, _'Right on time.'_

Everything was as it should be, the class freak being beaten up, the nerds and geeks playing some sort of trivia game and the bimbos headed right in his direction.

Once again, he rolled his eyes, _'Three, two, and one.'_

Just as the posse's leader, Kimi – I think her name was, was about to speak, a series of chakra wires – which was woven into a net – activated underneath her whole group and trapped them into the net, dragging them up, letting them dangle from the ceiling. Did I mention that he was a prodigy? Well, now I have.

'_Same as usual. They just never learn.'_

As soon as the bell rings, their sensei Makoto Kobayashi, or Koba-sensei for short, pushes the door open and addresses his class in the usual manner. But before he sees the dangling bimbos, Neji makes sure to drop them. Ouch.

"Morning kiddies!" Koba-sensei grinned.

He was tall, skinny man with skin the colour of buckwheat flour. His very image brings the picture of a soba noodle and so behind his back, students refer to him as Soba-sensei.

"Anyhoo, we have a new student here with us today. I hope you welcome her since she's also just moved into Konoha. Come on in kid!"

'_Not another fan girl, please,' _the Hyuga prayed, of course, his face didn't betray his intentions.

Walking in was a young girl with coffee brown tied up in buns. She had dark brown eyes, a button nose and an impish grin. But what was interesting about her appearance was that she was hobbling in the door with some crutches supporting her. Strangely, her mood didn't seem to be affected by the crutches, nor did they deter that grin from pasting itself on her face.

"Hey! I'm Tenten and I love weapons. It would be awesome to have you guys as friends but mess with me and you might just find yourself with a kunai skewering you. Nice to meet you all though!

The class sweat dropped.

Even Soba-sen … er … Koba-sensei was looking at her weirdly.

"A-alright then, any questions for the young lady?"

A boy with bushy eyebrows, otherwise known as the class freak, lifted up his arm.

"Yes Lee?"

"In the name of all that is youthful, I would like to ask how the lovely flower …"

As he said the word flower, about 100 kunais flew towards him, pinning his body on the wall at the back, forming a perfect outline of his body.

"Call me flower one more time and I'll make sure that you end up looking like a hedgehog."

"Err … of course Tenten-san," he squeaked.

The class stared at the new girl as if she was insane. Even the teacher stared at her. Only Neji acted as if he was unperturbed – which was very FAR from the truth.

"Now now Tenten. Although we are a shinobi school, it is imperative that we do not cause grievous harm to anybody else in the class. During the practical parts – yes, but in class – no. It would look very bad if …"

"I'm sorry to interrupt you Sobayashi-sensei …"

"It's Kobayashi, Koba-sensei for short."

"Oh, okay then. Well, I'm sorry to interrupt Koba-sensei but I am well aware of that. And, as I'm sure Lee-san could prove to you, he has not been grievously harmed – actually, he has not been harmed in anyway. Am I right Lee-san?"

"Oh yes! She is right. I do not feel any pain. Oh how youthful of you Tenten-san! I thank you with all my heart!!"

"…" Koba-sensei blinked.

Silence.

"So, what was the question you had Lee-san?" Tenten queried, filling in the heavy silence.

"Oh yes! I was curious as to why you are wearing crutches?"

"Oh that," she replied, in a less exuberant manner – which was only noticed by the Hyuga himself mind you, "Well, my family got killed back from where I was from and while I was running away from the murderers, I tripped over a tree root and fell down a hill."

There was a sniff coming from bushy brows. Soon, he had tears running down his face.

"I /hic/ am /hic/ so /hic/ sorry about /hic/ your /hic/ /hic/ family."

She shrugged indifferently.

Behind her, Soba … cough Koba-sensei, was subtly dabbing his eyes with a hankie.

The class stared at him.

"Er … anyway … I apologise for your traumatising experience but now we have to start the lesson. If you could please sit next to Neji Hyuga. Hyuga, could you please lift your hand up?"

He raised his hand and dropped it down again.

"Okay, there we go."

Tenten then hobbled down the aisle and then slowly eased herself into her chair.

"Hey! Nice to sit next to another girl. I hope we could be good friends."

Neji twitched at her innocent accusation and gave her a first hand experience of the "Hyuga glare".

She lifted up an eyebrow and muttered under her breath, "Geez. Girl problems."

"Okey dokey then kiddies, today, we're starting with mathematics. I want you to sort yourselves into groups … actually no, I'll do that myself."

This produced a groan from the class.

"Okay. I'll number you randomly and if you have the same number as someone then you're in the same group."

He pointed up a row, across a column, down another row and then at random people.

"You're one, two, three … seven, eight, one … five, six … one, two … seven and eight. Now find the other two people in your group and stick together."

There was a lot of shuffling but neither Tenten nor Neji moved because they knew they were in the same group. They were soon joined by the vivacious Lee.

"Now, since you're in your groups already, I'll tell you what we're doing today. Today, we are entering the wonderful world of … "MEASUREMENT!"

A tumbleweed rolls outside.

Koba-sensei sighed at the lack of excitement, "Anyhoo, I need you all to draw a chart like the one in your exercise book in chapter 7, exercise 5bi, page 384. Four rows across and three columns down. Label the top left hand corner "Object Name", the next one on the right "Estimated Length" and the one on the far right "Actual Length". Each one of you will do one. You've got ten minutes to finish this task. Go."

Lee glanced at his group and gulped. On his left was the stoic prodigy, someone who could easily kill you just by glaring and on his left, was Tenten, the new girl who happened to be armed with sharp, pointy things. He gulped and offered a silent prayer to Kami-sama.

"Um …" he began tentatively, "I'll start if you don't mind."

Neji nodded while Tenten gave him a small smile.

"Okay, I pick," Lee glanced around the room, "I know! The abacus! My estimate is that it is … 25 centimetres long."

"I'll write that down then," replied Tenten, "So, do you want to measure it?"

"Of course. Let me see … no! My youth has been tainted; I am off by five millimetres! I will do 500 sit ups, 500 push ups and 1000 cartwheels as punishment for my lack of youth."

Tenten sweat dropped.

"Okay then, um … you girl, do you want to go next?"

The question was directed at Neji … and he wasn't too happy with it.

For once, he spoke – menacingly, "I. Am. NOT. A. Girl. Will. You. Get. That. In. That. Thick. Head. Of. Yours."

Tenten gaped at him. Don't get her wrong. That glaring and staring stuff didn't really bug her … it was more off the fact that …

"OMG. You're a trans?"

Lee paled at her accusation.

"Um … Tenten-san, Neji-san is a male. And um …" he glanced at Neji's direction and paled at his bloodcurdling look.

He JUST managed to squeak out the rest of his sentence.

"PleasedonotgetHyuga-sanangryorhewillkillyou!"

Tenten just shook her head.

"Oh relax Lee-san. Let's just ignore the moody freak."

This time Lee gaped – and so did the Hyuga.

"Freak? Who are you calling a freak? If you weren't wearing pink, I would've thought that you were a guy."

Tenten twitched but remained calm.

"Okay, my turn then!" Tenten exclaimed, ignoring the threatening glares she was receiving from Neji and his fan girls.

"Hmm … I choose … that grasshopper on the floor. My guess is that it's … three centimetres and two millimetres in length," she grabbed the grasshopper gently and promptly measured it, "I was right!"

The Hyuga glare wavered for a moment at her exclamation but then it increased ten fold as he realised that she was right.

"How youthful Tenten-san! That is an amazing skill!"

"Nah, it was just a lucky guess," she smiled sheepishly.

"My turn then," Neji said quickly.

He looked around, trying to see if he could find something to measure. His eyes landed on Tenten's discarded crutches.

"Can I measure your crutch?"

BAM

**9 hours later**

Neji Hyuga woke up in a bare room, walls the colour of vanilla ice-cream. If he wasn't feeling that intense pain right between his legs, he might've thought that he was back at home and that his experience earlier was only a dream. He bit his lip in pain but forced himself not to cry out in pain for emotions were for the weak.

He heard his bed spread make a scrunching sound on his left causing him to turn his head a fraction in that direction. Two buns.

'_Oh shit. Not her again.'_

As if she heard his thoughts, she lifted up her head and stretched.

"OMG. You're awake. I am so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you … well, actually I did … but Lee-san explained to me what you meant and …"

"You're rambling," he interrupted, not really knowing why he did.

"Oh, that. Um … I'm sorry."

Neji stared at the ceiling in silence, subtly biting the corner of his lip.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he hissed, "You can leave now."

"So why are you biting your lip. You're drawing blood you know."

He was silent. He licked his lip and the metallic taste reached his taste buds.

"Look … um … Tsunade-sama gave me some pain-killers for you. It's been 9 hours since I hit you in … your … um … your … your "you know where" and I think the pain killers have started to wear off. Here. I can give you your pills."

"I'm. Fine."

He said that but it was obvious that it was getting harder and harder to hold in the pain.

"Hey look. Just swallow your pride okay? And while you're at it, swallow these pills as well," she huffed.

And with that, she shoved two tablets into his mouth and forced them down with some water. Neji began coughing and choking. Tenten, realising what she has just done, immediately helped Neji in a sitting position and then repeatedly whacked his back. Soon, he stopped choking and was able to glare at Tenten.

"You're welcome," she shrugged.

"Is it your life long mission to cause me pain and kill me?"

"No. Not really," she paused, "but then again, I've never had so much fun before."

He glared at her.

She glanced at the clock on the wall.

"Kuso. I have to be back at the orphanage by now. Sorry again Neji-san. I hope I haven't made you infertile," she grinned, before opening the door and leaving him.

Before he could come up with a clever comeback or a retort of a sort, she looked back at him and said.

"Oh yeah. Make sure you do some groin excercises three times a day. Once in the morning, once in midday and once in the evening. Do that for a total of one hour each day for the next two weeks. Mum had done that to my dad when they were alive and Dad still managed to help mum make me so I'm sure you'll be fine. Ciao."

And with that, she left him on his own.

He glanced at the spot where she used to be and smirked.

#

Order and routine. Something Neji Hyuga likes other than training and becoming stronger.

Well, it seems to me that a certain bun haired girl has just managed to add herself to that growing list of likes.

#

"I'm sure that this could be added to my routine," and with that, the Hyuga prodigy closed his eyes and went to sleep.

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**OMG. What the hell have I just written? Oh well. Do you think I can rate this as a K or K+? Could you tell me so I can rate it appropriately? Danke!**

**REviEWs aRE moST apPRecIAteD!**

**Ja ne**


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